[timhaak]

From reading quiet a bit on this the biggest problem is quiet often is only doing things you feel you should be doing.

Our brains need rewards to to be able to motivate us to do hard things.

When you only do the things you feel you should with nothing fun. You effectively are doing the same as punishing yourself every-time you are doing the thing you want to be motivated about.

Eventually your brain will start to fight to not do it.

The trick to get it back is apparently to start finding small things that are fun and easy and to do some unrelated external things to also just give your brain some time off.

Basically you want to follow similar patterns as if you are training an animal

By doing the small things that give you a treat. You are training your brain to want to do more of it.

You also need to spend some time on external things to work. That way the times when you have to work on things that are not rewarding you have something else to counter balance this.

This should not be something computer related if possible.

Also if it can be something where you get more human contact it’s recommended.

I’m talking as someone who is slowly recovering from this as well.

Still lots of work to go

But it definitely does improve. Just takes time.

[arthur_sav]

This actually makes so much sense to me.

I think i have developed a set of actions, unconsciously, to balance work/fun and rewarding my self.

Whenever i start a new project my gym/workout routine also grows otherwise i feel unmotivated.

Competitive gaming is another reward. It's something i can do every day for 30-40 minutes, feels rewarding, and stabilises my mood.

[Viliam1234]

If you like talking to your colleagues, you may want to start every day with a 10 minutes chat. If you like seeing unit tests pass, you may want to do test-driven development. Heck, even making money could be made a bit more fun, if you paint a large chart of your current wealth on your wall and update it every month (the key is doing this every month, rather than once a year).

[epimetheus2]

Thanks